A growing number of officials are hitting the reset button on Mayor de Blasio’s plan for citywide Wi-Fi — which provides super-fast service to Manhattan but leaves other parts of the city in the slow lane.
Under the plan to place Wi-Fi kiosks at payphone locations across the city, the Daily News revealed, all kiosks in Manhattan and more upscale neighborhoods of Brooklyn and Queens will get really fast 1 Gigabyte service, while everybody else will get Wi-Fi that’s 10 times slower.
That means 65% of the high-speed Wi-Fi winds up in Manhattan, while Brooklyn gets 12.8% and the Bronx gets a paltry 6%, The News found.
“You brought to light this digital inequality and we need to address this,” said Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams.
Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. concurred, telling The News the five borough presidents are talking about how to change the plan before the city Franchise & Concession Review Committee votes on it Dec. 12.
The Beeps get a collective single vote on the six-member committee, which de Blasio controls with four votes. The controller also gets a vote.
“We want answers to these questions prior to this vote,” Diaz said. “It’s really disgraceful and it goes against who we are when the speeds are based on affluent communities. “
Public Advocate Letitia James called the plan favoring the haves over the have-nots “unacceptable.”
“To provide service that primarily benefits Manhattan is just unacceptable,” James said, urging de Blasio to “go back to the drawing board and renegotiate with this company.”
“Locations of the LinkNYC hotspots locations would be based on population density and foot traffic — not income-level. Commercial areas with more people are expected to have more users connected to the structures and therefore require higher bandwidth.
“What’s more, all hotspots would provide speeds many times faster than the average public WiFi that currently exists, and will be built across the five boroughs with input from elected officials and communities they serve. If this proposal is approved, we look forward to continue working to bring state-of-the-art technology to more New Yorkers,” said DoITT spokesperson Nick Sbordone.
